Koppel Biased? Let Me Count the Ways

No doubt feeling like a pair of Daniels in the lion's den,
ABC's Ted Koppel and NBC's Tim Russert bravely trod into the Conservative
Political Action Conference on March 7 to defend their industry against the
charge of liberal bias. While Russert was solicitous, Koppel would have none
of it. "It's nobody's business whether I'm a liberal or a
conservative," he snapped, then added:

"I make a challenge to any one of you here...if any one
of you wants to point to a particular broadcast that I have done, and by
pointing to that broadcast to seek to infer from that what my politics are,
please do so...I don't need to apologize for my reporting." With pleasure
I'll take him up on that challenge. Will ten separate examples do?

1. On October 18, 1989, after a San Francisco earthquake
killed hundreds in a bridge collapse, Koppel asked if this couldn't be blamed
on tax-cutting conservatives: "Any instances where the money was not
spent because of the rollback of Proposition 13, where money would have made a
difference?" (For the record, as The Wall Street Journal reported,
California's roads and bridges were funded by state and federal gas taxes, not
the property taxes cut by Proposition 13.)

2. On February 23, 1990, Koppel devoted his show to how the
U.S. would normalize relations after the Sandinistas defeated Violeta Chamorro
in a free election: "Almost certainly, the Sandinistas will still
win." (As with so much of "Nightline" reporting on Nicaragua,
they had no idea what was happening: the Sandinistas were routed at the
polls.)

3. On October 19, 1990, and January 18, 1991,
"Nightline" reporter Jackie Judd proclaimed Gulf War protesters were
not "oddball fringe elements" and that among them "Saddam
Hussein is recognized as a menace." (In fact, print reports from the
largest protests in 1991 documented how podium speakers preached victory for
Iraq - and were cheered.)

4. On June 20, 1991, "Nightline" devoted a
one-hour special resurrecting the October Surprise myth that Ronald Reagan's
operatives delayed the release of American hostages in Iran. When
congressional investigations again proved the theory a farce, a
"Nightline" spokeswoman told us: "That is not a broadcast for
Nightline. That's a headline. That's not a half-hour show."

5. On October 15, 1991, after the confirmation of Clarence
Thomas, Koppel complained conservatives won with "hardball tactics"
while the Democrats were "largely ineffectual counterpunchers." On
November 2, 1994, "Nightline" devoted a half-hour to Thomas-trashing
reporters Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer; author David Brock, who took the
contrary position with "The Real Anita Hill," was never booked.

6. On February 12, 1992, Koppel read Clinton's "thank
you for saving me from the draft" letter, calling it "remarkable...
eloquent and revealing." He insisted: "And indeed, if we were
electing that 23-year-old man, what he said and thought and felt at that time
would be germane." Compare: When the Quayle draft controversy erupted in
1988, Koppel pounced on Bush flack Craig Fuller, charging it "leaves this
image now of having said 'Here I'll hold your coat, you go and fight in
Vietnam. I'm going to join the National Guard.'"

7.On August 18, 1992, Koppel began a program on Hillary
Clinton by declaring: "Let us not for a moment be confused into believing
that this is only a conservative Republican thing, this business of some
people feeling threatened by smart, assertive professional women."
(Presumably, there are life forms even lower than conservative Republicans.)

8. On January 28, 1994, Koppel began an interview with
Oliver North: "Mr. North is tough, smart, and extremely hard-working....
He is also an accomplished liar and a shameless self-promoter." Koppel
never described Clinton this way, complaining instead on August 16, 1994 that
"he is receiving little or no credit for his accomplishments."

9. On November 18, 1994, Koppel concluded a series from a
North Carolina prison: "Crime doesn't happen in a vacuum...we are
disproportionately hard on the poor and ill-educated in this country...to be
poor and uneducated in America already constitutes two strikes, and to
automatically sentence someone to prison for life on a third strike, without
regard to circumstance or context, is unjust, imprudent, and will not solve
our problems."

10. On February 23, 1996, days after Pat Buchanan won the
New Hampshire primary, Koppel spent a half-hour attacking him. He falsely
charged Buchanan's father listened to Father Coughlin's anti-Semitic radio
show, and used an anonymous source to accuse his little brothers of beating up
Jewish kids in the 1950s. He ended by quoting a Buchanan endorsement by
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: "It's not that Buchanan hasn't expressed some of
the views that Zhirinovsky echoed, but perhaps he'd never realized how ugly
they sounded until he heard them in the mouth of a genuine bigot."

On the whole, Ted Koppel is no Bryant Gumbel, and
"Nightline" is no "Frontline." But to challenge his
audience to document bias in his reporting is like Gary Hart challenging
reporters to document his infidelity.

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